Monday, April 28, 2014

SMALL GROUP time is precious in my sight. Times when a group of
relatively like-minded people meet for a common purpose are encouraging,
equipping and empowering. Times like these, as the group parts ways, are
reflected on as uplifting, inspiring, and to a good degree, challenging.

One such challenge a group I’m connected to pondered recently was, “What is wisdom, and how do we attain it.”

We talked about role models in life; those who exuded what we observed
to be wisdom. We talked about faith, humility, stability of personality, and
character – amongst other things – in the characterisation of wisdom in a
person.

But two defining degrees I came away with.

Two degrees of wisdom were these: 1) to be a learning person – fundamentally open to learning the whole of our
lives, and 2) to be an effective and shrewd decision maker (which is a harder degree to aspire to than the
first).

The first is a commitment to being;
the second, a commitment to becoming.

Being a Learning Person

It’s not hard to be a learning person if we will let God humble
ourselves in the midst of daily life. It takes a daily commitment before God,
to allow the Lord to be truly Sovereign, such that we might see the
opportunities for learning as they present themselves. They are all around us.

If we can see that life is the learning ground for the life to come, we
will study our lives and the lives of others with new eyes – and a fascination.
We want to learn from our mistakes as well as from our successes. We also want
to replicate those things in others that we admire, without falling into
consternation of people for the things we detest. We focus on what can be
learned. It is a fact of being.

Becoming an Effective and Shrewd Decision Maker

Setting our sights on something we can all grow in is a good plan. We
can all become better, more effective and shrewd decision makers. This, again,
is about being surrendered in the moment before God, weighing the known information
before us, and deploying the best thoughts with the best of intent, with the
commitment to monitor the decision made. Faith allows us to trust the decision
enough to see it thrive or fail. Humility allows us to return to the decision
and make further decisions without being anchored, necessarily, to the initial
decision.

***

What is wisdom? Two degrees of commitment are 1) to be a learning person
and 2) to become an effective and shrewd decision maker.

Sunday, April 27, 2014

“You can avoid having
ulcers by adapting to the situation: If you fall in the mud puddle, check your
pockets for fish.”

— Author
Unknown.

We all have it: baggage. If we don’t watch it, however, the
baggage creeps up on us insidiously and actively and harms our relationships,
even at an intrapersonal level – we begin to live with indifference.

There must be no limit to the amount of baggage we can carry; we
just load it on, over, within, and through the existing luggage, latticing
complications and emotional effect—to the jettisoning of our spiritual health.

But, what creates baggage?

Relationship outcomes gone wrong and inappropriately coped
with... losses and life blows that are destined to make us stronger weaken us
as we take the wrong road to “healing”... crushing experiences from
childhood... theft of our souls... abuse, neglect, sorrows, death, divorce,
bullying, inauthentic rapport, lack of love, fear etc.

This list is endless. One common denominator, however, is the coping mechanisms we choose to implement.
Go the wrong way and we attract only more baggage, and such intricate little
and bulky large bags, packages, cartons and parcels of fear-producing anxiety.
Go the right way—the narrow path many do not take, for it involves its own
pain—and we alleviate baggage, learning to live, eventually, a free existence.

And this is everyone’s destiny; at least as far as the vast
majority are concerned—those ones who have the capacity to be honest with
themselves. This, of course, is a famous AA truism, enshrined by the biblical
schema.

Honesty is always the best policy when unloading baggage.

We all have it—more or less: baggage. The greatest gift for the
person seeking to offload excess, fear-producing baggage is to simply be
brutally honest about their life; this is to be humble within themselves as to
where they’re truly at.

Seeking the truth in relational outcomes is crucial. Reflecting
over our initiated actions and responses, continually and habitually, calling
ourselves to account, is the only way. Our relationship outcomes are our
biggest indicator of success and failure.

Let’s be honest about the baggage we are so willing to carry,
which does us only harm. Honesty promotes healing.

Friday, April 25, 2014

“Self is one of the
toughest plants that grows in the garden of life.”

—
A.W. Tozer (1897–1963)

BOASTING and belittling of ourselves is a temptation of pride and we are
all tempted. Whilst both are at opposite ends of the spectrum, both occur
because of the focus on self.

It can seem that boasting and belittling of ourselves is a highly
visible thing where we prove ourselves prone to one or both in the normal flow
of life. It’s not actually the case most of the time, especially with those who
partake in analyses of self (truthful or otherwise).

Many of us will do these things unconsciously. Others will obtain ‘data’
from real life and assimilate it as a performance record – “How am I going?”
There are reams of other ways we engage in this priory of self.

The Spiritual Discipline of Self-Awareness

In emotional intelligence terms, there is great personal and
interpersonal benefit in engaging in what I call the spiritual discipline of
self-awareness.

There is less of a problem with this focus on self when there is
self-awareness – when we are aware that we are boasting or belittle of
ourselves.

Indeed, as we become more and more self-aware we will take up the
cudgels of God’s correction – to spurn this focus on self (apart from what
might be gleaned for self-esteem purposes) and use such focus to concentrate on
others.

***

And I guess there is no use in spurning this focus on self when God
intends us to use it to a certain extent to gain relief from belittling
ourselves.

But we must surely know that as we journey with God through his Word and
through spending time with him in prayer our self-esteem tends to take care of
itself, because we are bathing in his Presence all the time.

The journey beyond tyranny of self takes its mark from a focus on God.

The more we focus on the things of God – to lose ourselves in God – the
more we lose interest in the things of the self. This is truly a blessing.
There is nowhere near the allure about the self, or selfish things, when we
bear thought for the things of God.

***

The journey beyond tyranny of self takes its mark from a focus on God.
The more we focus on God the fewer burdens we carry for ourselves and the
lighter and more joyful we come to be.

Many build their houses in vain. We
all have. Many burn themselves out on the kingdom of approval. We all have. Many
stake their lives on a wafer of a chance. We all have. We all fall short.

Success in life is the daily retention
of the eternal perspective, trusting God to lead from that simple premise.

To build our house – the foundation of our lives – on vanity and
approval and on luck is to build with sand or paper. But when we build on the
rock solid dependability of God we can be sustained through the worst of
disasters, because we know grief doesn’t prevent our advancement in the Kingdom.
Indeed, grief may well facilitate the ordination of grief in our experience.

God’s kingdom, ushered in through the glorification of the Messiah, is a
kingdom of no sense to the world. It is other-worldly. And to build within this
Kingdom, and to advance, is to build as if we are allowing the destruction of
what has been built. It bears re-reading: things of the world that are
destroyed – empires of the sun – are necessary in bringing forth the Kingdom to
come.

If this Kingdom we build on is a coming kingdom, and it is, because God
has engineered it, then we are propagators of Divine work. What is valued in
this world must pass away, so that which is truly valued may come and find God
glorified through us for them.

There is an eternity to life that must be respected.

When we respect this eternal aspect of life – that ‘life’ and ‘eternal’
must fit in the same phrase – then we give up our petty flagrant desires, our
own straining efforts, our need of approval, our striving for a fortune of any
other bounds but God’s.

***

Nothing we build makes any sense or has any purpose unless we build a
Kingdom foundation of eternal value. Why we do what we do counts much more than
what we do. The heart makes the difference. A heart oriented toward the Kingdom
will ensure things of eternal value have primacy.

Though grief seems to take too long (yes,
it takes too long) there is an invisible learning that takes place, the
recognition of which is afterwards. Growth is part of God’s compensation for
what we have been through. Through growth we are shown we are more than
conquerors, through Christ who saves us.

If this were not true, the gospel of God,
as expounded by Jesus and the apostles, would also not be true. But there is
nothing more true. Growth is the point of loss, as is the restoration of our
relationship and reliance upon God.

For, in loss we are reminded starkly that
we have nothing dependable left other than God. Not that we know
it at the time, but God is enough, though nothing seems enough at the time.

But the point is pain. And that sounds crass, but it is the truth. Pain
will force us to come to know God more intimately. Pain will conjure notions in
us to connect with others who will give us support, love, and guidance. Pain is
a humbling reality, and we can all do with humbling. Through pain we come to
know the essences for true life in a much more meaningful way. Pain drives us
to question things; to get to and gather the kernel of truth and to throw away
the chaff.

All these truths about pain are important to see and understand, for
this life is replete with pain. It is evident everywhere we go.

Pain will take us into growth – though again it’s not to be immediately
recognised. As we endure pain it will necessitate faith, which is borne on the
wings of hope – a hope for a long time that is invisible.

Growth is the point out of loss, where grief is the vehicle taking us
away from the trappings of this world we don’t want to let go of. Such growth
is a fresh opportunity to escape such trappings – even those perceived of as
‘good’ – and to journey onward with God.

***

Though grief is long and tiresome, God ensures a good reward for
diligent endurance. The pain suffered hopefully – though it doesn’t feel
anything like hope – is ventured into by faith, and faith facilitates growth.
When we grieve well we grow.

Tuesday, April 22, 2014

This is a perplexing truth that God uses to
show us that things other than his very self are meaningless, futile, but a
chasing of the wind, without him front and centre.

So we can see, that life – true life, which
is the portent of the Gospel – is not about life at all; not the way we
typically see life.

We see life as a lottery to win, a car to
acquire, a home to buy, a family to build, and a career to develop, with status
to attain. But such meaning for life is never really life, because we never get
there. We are never truly satisfied with what we have. There is always
something over yonder. The thing attained is always nice for a little while,
then there’s a quick departure into a hankering for the next thing.

True life – the life that Jesus came to
give and does give when we accede –
is not in the acquiring of things. It is in the acquiring of the gift of
unrolling salvation as it takes its place in our daily life. This salvation is
an acquisition of skilled access – the less want for things, the more want for
the things of God.

This is not a ridiculous thing to
understand; a lie of a truth, as if there was ever the possibility. This is
about a truth that cannot ever fail. It does not fail.

As we approach life with no agenda for
ourselves – having died to the self – we receive as life this life that God
alone gives. It comes as a miracle, because we cannot have even anticipated we
could feel this way, blessed in the holy cognisance of a thing so eternal as
not really to make sense to those wedded to this life. It must be experienced
to actually be believed, and then still, others will not believe it until they
have experienced it for themselves. This is why it might seem like a lie.

But the gospel is paradoxical; it is a holy
reversal of the trends of this world.

***

Our thoughts on life do not agree with
God’s thoughts for life. When we jettison the envying, straining, driving, and
striving life for the life that God has eternally for us, then we receive this
one and only true life, because we have proclaimed death to the feverish,
never-to-be-satisfied self.

Monday, April 21, 2014

OLD AGE is a benefit in that a whole life
may be seen for what it has been. But the disadvantage is people on their
deathbeds so often rue a life they feel was wasted, or, worse, was a source of
harm for others. Why is it that at the end of life we see what we should have
seen so clearly all along? It’s because our death encircles and suddenly we are
poised to surrender to it. There is no more benefit in ignoring the inevitable.
The inevitable comes, and it stalks, taking no prisoners.

We stand or sit or lay down in this day –
our very moment – and we are beset by many forces that hold us in the place we
are in. But at any given moment we may challenge one or more of these forces;
some of these forces we will not what to challenge, but some we are fools not
to.

We want to challenge those forces for
addiction and habitual patterns we find it hard to escape from. We have great
reason to overturn the control these have over us – we don’t wish to hold above
our heads and over our shoulders that regret to be faced in those final days.

Then, what about the sudden death? No
opportunity for regret is available. The next thing we may know is the fact of
Judgment, as we are whisked away to face God in some ethereal way.

This is your life. This is my life. We live
in this time because God ordained for us to live and to make our mark on
humanity and life in this
here-and-now.

Without creating an unnecessary urgency, this day beckons, because death and the
afterlife both beckon – and let’s not miss this, they beckon in their immediacy
eternally. None of us can defeat physical death like Jesus did, but we can take
seriously the promise of the end of the physical life, and, with it, make the
most of it we can.

***

This is your life. This is my life. But
when life takes on a post-mortem perspective we begin to understand how truly important
our deeds in the body are. From the day of our death we may visit, take a look
back, and decide where our lives are heading now.

It speaks to our human nature, but none of us like being
rejected.Our expectations are sown-in
at one level, yet we get feedback that suggests we’re not there or we’re not
wanted.For a moment, if truth be known,
we feel crushed.And these moments can
linger and recur.

But this is an important clue for how we see ourselves.

If rejections do have a way of being taken hard there are both
consequences and limiting mindsets that come against us, the limiting mindset
being one consequence of handling rejection inappropriately.

But, first, this classic truth:

Not
everyone, or every situation, will approve of us, our abilities, or what we
have to offer.Everyone gets rejected.

Consequences

Negative consequences are the mark here, especially when the
rejection meets us hard.Hard rejections
are never really expected.They hit us
harder because the thing we were rejected for meant more to us than we
realised, or if all rejections are meeting us hard, then we know we’ve got an
approval complex—we need approval.(The person with a healthy self-esteem can
survive without everyone’s approval.They’re free as a result.)

Consequences will vary from person to person, but an obvious
consequence is we feature for the theme of situational emotional and spiritual
death—our whole is subsumed in this one event... calling us to the limiting
mindset.

Limiting
Mindsets

The biggest issue with rejection is not the pain and anguish of
being shut down, but the problem of the immediate handling of life.

Like pupils under light, our thinking constricts.

We become rather constrained to what we don’t have, and what
we’re missing out on, as opposed to the vast resources we still do have.Distraction becomes us as we replay the what’s
happened over and again.

Ways
Forward

Can we ever get to a position where we might celebrate our rejections?Perhaps this is seen as one door slamming
shut in our faces, yet inviting a better and more appropriate door to open to
us.

Can we have an, “It’s their loss” mentality (without
establishing it in resentment)?

However we handle rejection—and learning from it is the purpose,
not languishing in it—we ought to see it as part of life.It always will be.We will not please everyone, and we’ll not attain
to everyone’s standards.

The way forward is to keep going.Go onto the next revelation; go with the flow
of the river... don’t get caught up a muddy creek of resentment.

PEACE is a wind – the Spirit – as it tends
over, through, and in the human being entering into it; what is embraced is
accepted and that is also integration. By the desire for peace, the search is
initiated, and the discovery is made, for we will do what it takes us to
receive peace. And the reception of peace is a great celebration, because we
have just enough access to holy resources to get through the anxiousness we
bear right now. For, this peace cannot and will not change our circumstances –
for that is life – but peace is acceptance, and that, of itself, is the miracle
– a thing we cannot understand.

***

PEACE is a wind – God-breathed – that
changes things. It takes the anxious burden into the ethereal, and a fresh and
divine perspective may be applied to the circumstances of the day. Peace
transcends our perceptions of our ability to contend in the anxiety. With
peace, our dimensions for peace are expanded. Peace redefines peace. As we
partake, we learn more about what it truly is from what it isn’t – the wind;
the Spirit blows into us fresh knowledge from our experience. Such knowledge
empowers us and gives us a confidence that we can, through God, sustain
ourselves, even in spite of the present degree of anxiety.

***

PEACE is a wind – the Presence of Christ –
as we gaze wistfully into his face in the midst of the trial. For, as Christ
suffered, and promised us, each human being, a suffering, we bear the reality
of that – and the fact that Christ is with us never more than through
our hardships. We may find the perspective alluring and amazing, that, whilst
we bear this groaning all day and night long, there is a part of us so
intimately connected to the Lord, it doesn’t really matter any more. We are
found, within ourselves, to be more than conquerors through Christ, who is
risen in us by his Holy Spirit.

***

Peace is a wind – the Holy Spirit. The Wind
is what occupies the entire space beneath our wings of confidence in the midst
of trial. Quelling fear, anxiousness, and discouragement, the Wind stabilizes,
lightens, and restores.

Thursday, April 17, 2014

TEARS
are the attempt at reconciling such a depth of emotion that cannot ever be understood.
When that one is lost – that father with a young son, the father who was needed
for some decades to come, the father whose life is cut way too short, so
suddenly – it leaves us completely bereft of viable response. What can be done?
What can possibly be done.

Nothing.

Nothing
can be done in the midst of anguish; love lost, to the point of everything, in
grief.

Life
is a tragedy waiting to happen and we can very well wonder what is going on. We
can wonder what point there is. We can wonder what God is doing. Why is life so
hard, so enticingly perplexing, so bitterly ingratiating?

We
have no have answer for the life ripped right away – except the cold comfort of
glory. I say cold comfort because it is good for the one we lost to be away
with the Lord – HOME – but, as we remain in the body, it is grief we are left
with.

The
anguish of love lost in grief is unparalleled as a flipside for all the best
things enshrined in love.

It is
always children that bring me to tears out of loss – a parent gone prematurely,
and why? We can well ask. Those innocent children. They grow up without a dad;
the one who loves them like no other person possibly can. And what about what
he misses out on? It is unfair.

But
there is a point in grief.

Grief
is the requiem of love gone wrong, for all love that is lost is somehow wrong
to our human sense for things. Anguish is passion taken all the way to its
extremities of pushing the human will to survive. Anguish strains every
emotional sinew to breaking point.

But
anguish is just the thing that can bring us into the definitive Presence of the
living God. Only as we are touched with the death of Jesus can we begin to see
his life. And we see that in grief. As loss occurs to us and we grieve there is
an untenable anguish that catapults us to God; the fool resists what should
never be resisted.

The
only way death can possibly be understood is through the eyes of God.

As
anguish is revealed in the form of loss, and the blackened clouds of grief roll
in, there is an open door to God; to receive a healing dose of his Spirit that
will eventually help us understand – why this, why now.